Monday, May 9, 2016

North Carolina files suit against Justice

“All this because the conservative Christians who run the state could not tolerate the fact that Charlotte, with about 8% of the state's population, decided to protect probably fewer than 1,000 citizens from discrimination.”

North Carolina has gone to court to sue the Department of Justice over enforcement of HB2. The governor, who is the plaintiff, is represented by a Raleigh firm, Millberg, Gordon and Stewart. The overriding problem for the state and Governor McCrory is that the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals has already ruled that transgender students are protected by Title IX. According to the complaint, the Department of Justice is being sued

… for their radical reinterpretation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964
which would prevent plaintiffs from protecting the bodily privacy rights of state employees
while accommodating the needs of transgendered state employees.

Pat McCrory and his fellow Christian-First GOPers have purchased more than just the opprobrium of businesses and decent society for their anti-LGBT lawmaking. They have put themselves in the cross-hairs of the Department of Justice which has given them a Monday deadline to announce that they will not enforce HB2. According to Justice the law passed in March violates the civil rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual
and transgender people by exposing them to sex
discrimination on the job and in education.

On Fox News Sunday McCrory said; “It's the federal government being a bully. It's making law.” Mirroring BS from Liberty Counsel (and anti-gay hate group) McCrory claimed that the Justice Department “is trying to define gender identity, and there is no clear identification or definition of gender identity.”

Yeah, well, we vote too and we elected President Barrack Obama — twice. His appointees, Eric Holder and now Loretta Lynch have been persistent protectors of equal protection under law for all citizens. What a preposterous presumption for the Department of Justice.

If McCrory does not back down – and I doubt that he will – then a costly federal lawsuit against the state is a distinct possibility. Putting this issue before a federal judge is risky business for the state. A court might even issue an injunction prohibiting enforcement of HB2 while the case is being considered. They would appeal such an injunction and probably lose at the Fourth Circuit.

All this because the conservative Christians who run the state could not tolerate the fact that Charlotte, with about 8% of the state's population, decided to protect probably fewer than 1,000 citizens from discrimination. It has already cost the state what is projected to be millions of dollars in tax revenues. The state has been exposed as the ignorant backwater that it really is.